Chinese fans of Harry Potter finally got a chance to catch up with the latest adventures of the boy wizard as the Chinese version of Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince went on sale across China at the weekend.
Chinese publisher Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe (People's Literature
Publishing House) had rushed to
PHOTO: APN
translate the book, first published in English in July, to beat the pirate editions, Xinhua news agency said.
"We have to prepare to quickly issue the Chinese edition to thwart the pirates," series editor Wang Ruiqin was quoted as saying.
China has vowed to crackdown on piracy in the book market.
PHOTO: APN
The whole of the first print run of 800,000 copies had been distributed nationwide to branches of the Xinhua Bookstore chain.
In Beijing, fans of the boy wizard reportedly started queuing from Friday night, although the book did not go on sale until Saturday.
One bookshop in the capital sold 8,000 copies on Saturday alone.
J.K. Rowling's series of books about a boy wizard at a boarding school have been an international hit with children and adults alike.
Rowling's books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide in over 60 languages and the first three Potter books have already been made into blockbuster movies.
Legendary singer and songwriter Bob Dylan embarks on a 31-concert European tour starting in Stockholm's Globen arena today and ending on November 27,
organizers said.
After gigs in Sweden, Germany, France, Italy and elsewhere, the tour will culminate with five shows at London's Brixton Academy and two concerts in Dublin.
It comes nearly three months after Dylan's North American tour with a
five-piece band, and he is expected to feature a similar mix of old and new work, including classics like Maggie's Farm and Lay, Lady, Lay and songs from his latest studio album, Love and Theft.
Dylan fans worldwide have already had much excitement recently with the release of director Martin Scorsese's epic documentary No Direction Home this year which charts Dylan's meteoric rise to superstardom through unusually forthright interviews with the man himself and a host of both besotted and reproachful contemporaries.
He has also published an autobiography Chronicles and The Bob Dylan Scrapbook, 1956-1966 within the past 12 months.
Dylan, who is 64, started as a protest folk singer in the 1960s, the decade that propelled him to world fame.
Still deeply rooted in American
traditional folk music, he has since
embraced rock'n'roll, country music and even jazz.
Eric Clapton will follow musicians Bob Dylan and Sting with a book about his life, telling of his 40 years as the top rock and blues guitarist of his age in which he went "to hell and back," publisher
Doubleday said. Doubleday in the United States, and Century in Britain, both owned by Bertelsmann AG said they would jointly publish the book in spring 2007 and paid Clapton a
"substantial advance."
Evidently Star Trek actor James "Scotty" Doohan took the catchphrase "beam me up" very seriously -- his cremated remains will be launched into space in accord with his last wishes. Commercial space flight operator Space Services Inc will launch the late actor's remains into space aboard its Explorers Flight on December 6, a company spokeswoman said.
The Beatles were singled out last week as the most influential entertainers of the past 100 years, beating out the likes of Elvis Presley, Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse, according to a survey conducted by show business newspaper Variety. Behind the Fab Four's
first-place finish, were in alphabetical order: jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong, television comedienne Lucille Ball, movie legends Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Charlie Chaplin, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, cartoon hero Mickey Mouse and singers Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Teen actress Mary-Kate Olsen has taken a leave of absence from New York University to focus on the entertainment company she runs with her twin sister, Ashley, her spokesman said. "She's not dropping out. She's taking an approved leave of absence to focus on her increasing responsibilities and live her life," spokesman Michael Pagnotta said, adding that Olsen had returned to Los Angeles.
Former Beverly Hills, 90210 star Tori Spelling and her husband are
getting divorced, just 15 months after they were married. Actor-writer Charlie Shanian filed for divorce last week,
according to court papers filed in Los Angeles. Grounds for the split were not immediately known, but the couple have been living apart since August.
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday delivered an address marking the first anniversary of his presidency. In the speech, Lai affirmed Taiwan’s global role in technology, trade and security. He announced economic and national security initiatives, and emphasized democratic values and cross-party cooperation. The following is the full text of his speech: Yesterday, outside of Beida Elementary School in New Taipei City’s Sanxia District (三峽), there was a major traffic accident that, sadly, claimed several lives and resulted in multiple injuries. The Executive Yuan immediately formed a task force, and last night I personally visited the victims in hospital. Central government agencies and the
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
As with most of northern Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) settlements, the village of Arunothai was only given a Thai name once the Thai government began in the 1970s to assert control over the border region and initiate a decades-long process of political integration. The village’s original name, bestowed by its Yunnanese founders when they first settled the valley in the late 1960s, was a Chinese name, Dagudi (大谷地), which literally translates as “a place for threshing rice.” At that time, these village founders did not know how permanent their settlement would be. Most of Arunothai’s first generation were soldiers
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